chapter title: you can't catch me
summary: —in which he takes aim, shoots, and saves her
note: ichigo is a badass.
His day starts out like any other.
He is sent out to search for survivors who need help, but like any other day he finds none. They also look for supplies, but that isn't part of his job. It is night when his shift is done, it is up to the next person up to continue his search rounds.
On his way back to the base his training kicks in, he catches the scent before he actually hears or sees them. He is trained to travel by roof-top—which is fairly easy in town whose buildings and houses are jammed together–so he is safe. He would have ignored the creatures normally but they are acting strange, all of them have a look of hunger on their faces. The look they have is more crazed and frenzied than usual; that is enough to spike his curiosity. They only have that look when there is a human on the ground, and by the looks of it seems like that human is injured.
He follows the creature instead of the visible trail of human blood streaked across the walls and floor of the small alley. And he hopes that he makes it in time to save that human before the creatures rip them apart, or worse.
He does not know for how much longer he will have to run, but with every sprint of his legs his anticipation and trepidation grow. He runs ahead, no longer following the creatures once he knows where he is and, because if he has to both fight and save someone then this alley instantly becomes a death trap for the both of them. There is no way out of it but climbing or running into a hoard of the ravenous undead. He calculates his plan of attack while running, if there is one thing he has learned in this fucked up world is that he should prepare for the worst and plan ahead.
He reaches the chain-link fence, marking the dead end. The person who got stuck must have not known there would be one, and once they did they probably didn't realize how much of a climb it would be– especially injured. They had been caught unprepared and without a plan, but he would not be.
A couple of the creatures surround the person, but they fight with each other over who is to get the first bite. None of the monsters have the time to react when he shoots, barely aiming, and blows the head of the one closest to biting. He curses when his next shot misses and ricochets off the wall. When it seems like he has gotten the attention of the monsters off of the person, he moves closer to the edge and begins to shoot at them one by one, like sitting ducks.
They never stood a chance against him to begin with.
When he has gotten rid of them all his twin hand guns are still in their holster and his shotgun is slung on his shoulder carelessly. Before he jumps down, he barely hears the thank you, or sees the look the person he has just saved gives him—which he now see is a girl—before they pass out, just a heap on the floor. The look she gave him is one of awe, as if he were an illusion, as if she is surprised that anyone would even bother to come to her rescue.
He lets out a deeply frustrated sigh, before quickly taking out his hand gun, and shooting behind him—straight into the forehead of a zombie. It is not surprising that one would try and get him from behind while he is distracted.
"These things aren't even worth it," he groans, as he mentally calculates how much ammunition rations he has left, but hopefully bringing in a survivor would get him so ammo coupons.
He slings his shotgun in his back, making sure that it is not loaded, as he strides over to the girl.
He checks her pulse point on her wrist, to make sure she has not died of exhaustion, blood loss, or sheer shock. He feels it flutter, it is barely there, beating too slow for his comfort. Seeing all the blood he inspects her wounds to make sure she has not been bitten, and if she has he will have to regrettably kill the girl. He cannot afford to risk and expose the others to the dangers of bringing a bitten person.
An unexpected sigh of relief leaves him when he is finished inspecting the wounds, none of them resemble anything close to bite marks. But the doctors would be able to make a more definitive assessment.
He tries to wake her, it would be easier to transport her back to base, but the girl is fully unconscious. He catches sight of her injured leg though, there would have been no way she could have moved on it anyways.
"Guess I'll have to carry you then…" he says, carefully placing her over his shoulders, he does not want to cause anymore damage to this frail looking girl.
With that done, he makes his way over to the fence, there is a hole at the far corner, hidden behind a large dumpster. He begins his trek back to base, his pace quickening, knowing that his gunshots will have alerted the entire living dead population to his current location.
The last thing he wants is to be caught by ravenous zombies, especially with the wounded girl.
He is hopeful though, more so than he has been in a long time. Saving and protecting a fellow survivor has that effect on him. If a person who looks like this girl can survive on her own then there is probably a multitude of survivors in the surrounding cities. They can rebuild, perhaps even eradicate the disease that made people come back to life with an unsatisfied appetite for those still living. When he gets back to base he knows that the others will feel the same. This girl will give them all a new reason to begin exploring the outlying cities and towns.
This girl is the renewed source of hope, for the hopeless.
endnote: i was seeing how long i could go without having to write the actual word zombie inside the story, but there are only so many words you can use.
edit: 10012012; thanks to boudour for catching my mistake. (: